Contemplative spaces

One of the things that I miss from pre-Covid-19 times is that I had places that were ideal for contemplation. The members’ bar at the Tate Modern, with its view over the Thames to St Paul’s, was my favourite spot. Yes, the Tate is open again now, but I’ve been very much reducing the amount that I go out, so I haven’t been there since the beginning of the year. And in my flat previous flat I had a beanbag that I would sit on when I wanted to do some contemplative work. I still have the beanbag, but the layout of the new flat means that I don’t often get it out to use it.

I really noticed this when I came to do my quarterly review today. I like to spend a bit of time just thinking in quite a free way, just letting thoughts come up and writing them down. But today I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to do it effectively. My thoughts were much more about wanting to get stuff done rather than to contemplate things. I improved the situation slightly by changing the music to the Inception soundtrack, but I still didn’t really manage to get into that contemplative state.

Figuring out the right tricks to induce the state of mind that you want is a useful thing to learn. And I have some work to do to set things up correctly given the current situation.